


Afraid of the Dark

by khal_blaine



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Blind Character, Blind!Blaine, Dalton Academy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 07:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1974948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khal_blaine/pseuds/khal_blaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Blaine loses his sight in a freak car accident, he returns to Dalton Academy to try to pick up the pieces of his suddenly shattered life. He finds support and solace in his old friends, The Warblers, and more than anyone else, Sebastian Smythe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afraid of the Dark

It was glass from the shattered windshield. A freak accident. That’s what the doctors told them. Usually the pane would have been treated with a special form of lamination, keeping it in place even if it broke. Blaine vaguely remembers a demonstration he’d seen on a Career Day at school long, long ago. After showing off the ambulance lights and blaring the siren for the group of excited kids to hear, the EMS responder had talked clinically about car crashes and vehicle safety features, culminating the discussion by smashing at a sheet of windshield glass with a hammer. Blaine had watched in fascination as the tiny shards covered the surface in miniscule cracks. Despite the damage, it remained intact, safe enough to run your hand across.

In his time of need, however, Blaine’s windshield had malfunctioned. A flaw in the manufacturing, his dad assumed. One of the rare problems that ended up going unnoticed. Though the airbag had saved his life, the same couldn’t be said for his eyes. The glass had shattered on impact. The tiny shards, reminiscent of 4th grade Career Day, had splintered out in all directions, falling down on him like rain—scattering across his face, covering his clothes, and slipping between his lids to cut and slice at his corneas like dozens of needles.

In the span of a few minutes Blaine’s 20/20 vision is reduced to a pitiful mockery of sight. The shards have been cleared, picked out with tweezers like the _Operation_ board game, but his left eye no longer sees. It’s all blackness—looks like empty space even though Blaine knows, logically, that the world hasn’t disappeared. His right eye is a bit luckier, leaving him with the ability to make out the faintest blur of color and shape. His depth perception has been decimated, however, and nothing he sees really makes any sense. He compares it once to staring through a kaleidoscope; everything’s distorted.

They can sue. They would win. His father, a longtime practiced attorney, would be more than able to get millions out of the global company that had made his son’s car, probably more if he threatened to get the news story to media outlets. Blaine knows they can win the suit. But no matter how much money ends up in his savings fund from the case, it won’t change the facts or turn back the clock.

He’ll never see again.

The longer he sits in the hospital bed, unable to see the sterile white of his surroundings, the more the reality of his situation begins to dawn on him. Blaine has never stopped to think how much he used his sense of sight in everyday life. Now that he considers it, he can hardly come up with a single common activity that doesn’t involve seeing—something he’d foolishly taken for granted for nearly two decades.

He knows his friends in Glee Club are probably blowing up his phone with messages and missed calls, understandably concerned after hearing from his mother that Blaine had been in an accident and would therefore not be accompanying them to Sectionals that very weekend. After scrambling with the setlist to replace Blaine as lead soloist, he’s sure they’ll be trying to find out more about his condition. Even his ex-boyfriend, seemingly farther away than ever in New York, has probably tried to check in with him, clueless that Blaine has already sobbed himself to sleep on one occasion when he’d spent too long dwelling on the fact that he’d never see Kurt smile again. The last memory he has of him is that of Kurt’s crumbling face, hurt and betrayed when Blaine admitted several months ago that he’d been with the stranger from Facebook. It pains Blaine to know that he wouldn’t be able to read or reply to any of their messages anyway, not unless he got someone to help.

* * *

 A few weeks pass before Blaine is finally forced to return to school. He’s exhausted his allotted amount of sick days, even with a doctor’s note, and if he misses any more he’ll be forced to repeat his senior year. Repeating freshman year after the Sadie Hawkins dance, the coma, and the physical therapy had been hard enough. Blaine can’t imagine being forced to repeat _two_ years of high school, so while he’s reluctant to venture back into the world, he agrees to go.

Several inevitable problems crop up after he makes his decision.

His parents can’t drive him to school. They both have jobs that need to be attended to—jobs that usually have them leaving the house before Blaine’s even finished his morning routine and arriving home late after he’s returned. Blaine hasn’t even thought of the fact that he’ll never be able to get behind the wheel of a car again. The difficulties of transportation prompts Blaine’s father to bring up discussion of transferring back to Dalton.

Immediately, Blaine latches onto the idea, remembering how the old building and quiet, mural-lined halls had become his safety zone, his oasis, after the turmoil of his first semester at public high school.

“You could board there and stay on campus,” his mother suggests at the dinner table. She sounds anxious, and Blaine knows she doesn’t want to leave her son impaired and alone, though the logistics of her idea admittedly make a lot more sense. “Then you wouldn’t have too far to get to your classes. We’ve even spoken to the headmaster about hiring someone to help you out… Make sure you find your way from class to class and all that…”

It’s the most awkward, depressing conversation Blaine’s ever had. He feels a lump in his throat at his mother’s words. Hiring someone to walk him around like a guide dog and ensure that he doesn’t run into walls or other students… it’s ridiculous. He flattens his palm down on the table and cautiously inches it forward until his fingers brush against the cold condensation of his water glass. It’s even a chore to grab it and keep it balanced on the way to his mouth. After taking a small sip that does nothing but aggravate his dry esophagus he proceeds just as slowly in placing the glass back down against the table, making sure it’s steady before letting go.

“You could join the Warblers again,” his father adds, “They just won at Sectionals earlier in the month. I’m sure they’d love to have you back.”

“I can’t dance anymore,” Blaine tells them, voice hollow and monotone.

“You can still sing, sweetheart,” his mother replies gently. He jumps in surprise when she places a comforting hand on his arm and lets out a frustrated breath, feeling like a stranger in his own skin. 

* * *

Blaine transfers to Dalton.

He gets a room on the first floor on the side of the dorm complex that’s closest to the academic building. Already he feels guilty, knowing that someone undoubtedly got kicked out to another dorm to make room for him. It’s a single room, which he’s equally grateful for and nervous about. Grateful because he doesn’t think he could stand the embarrassment and awkwardness of living with a stranger with two perfectly functioning eyes. Nervous because he’s alone. He’s blind and he’s alone. Though Blaine’s determined to be as independent as possible—he won’t let this disability define him—he’s still new to this world of darkness.

The specialist hired to assist him meets with Blaine and his parents when they move Blaine in. She’s a young woman, fresh out of college, named Ariel. She sounds kind and shares many helpful tips, but Blaine finds it a little hard to concentrate when he can’t see her. At her suggestion, he coordinates his closet and dresser: Blazer on the far left hanger in the closet. Vests and sweaters spread out next to it in alphabetical order according to color name. White dress shirts folded on the left side of the top drawer of his dresser and uniform pants on the right side, with shoes and black socks in the middle. In the second drawer are his underwear and Dalton ties, and in the third drawer are his pajamas and other casual clothes for weekend wear.

He practices the routes he’ll need to take, memorizing the floor plan. From the door he can walk to the left to reach his bed, to the right to reach his work desk. From his bed, it’s twelve unsteady steps across the frighteningly open floor to his dresser. If he turns to the left and takes five more, he’ll reach the closet. Following along the wall with his hand will lead him into the bathroom. It’s clinical, mathematical. He already feels less human.

He practices putting on his uniform. It’s easy except for the tie, but after fifteen failed attempts, he finally succeeds, and his parents promise him that it looks good. He takes their word for it, unable to look in the mirror. He practices climbing in and out of the shower. He lays down in bed and reaches out with a hand until he figures out how far away his alarm clock rests and where the snooze button is. He gets a quick tutorial on how to work his iPhone with the voiceover setting turned on. The robotic voice tells him the name of any app he touches. Double taps to navigate. Instead of typing his text messages, he can tell them to Siri and the phone will compose them itself. It’s much less private, but he has no other option.

It’s late by the time Blaine’s parents finally leave. His father hugs him tighter than Blaine’s ever recalled him doing. His mother holds him for a long time, brushing his hair back and kissing his forehead.

“It’ll be alright,” she promises. “You can call us whenever you need to. We’ll see you this weekend.”

“Okay.”

They leave.

Ariel tells Blaine his class schedule. Blaine tells her he wants to go to the Warblers’ meeting tomorrow after class. They always meet on Mondays for discussions and to plan for their Wednesday afternoon rehearsal, making sure their time actually spent rehearsing is as organized and useful as possible. She pencils it in and asks if Blaine has any more questions.

“No.”

“Okay, then. You have my number. Call me if you need anything, okay? I’m here to help you.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning to get you to class.” Blaine can hear the gentle smile in her voice. He doesn’t bother returning it. “Goodnight, Blaine.”

“Night.”

She heads out the door and locks it behind her. Blaine knows it’s best that she has her own key—he won’t have to get up to answer it whenever she knocks—but it’s still strange, knowing she could technically pop in at any given moment.

He wanders carefully over to his dresser, counting each step. His nightly routine takes an incredibly long time, but eventually he’s dressed in his pajamas with clean teeth, a washed face, and an alarm set to wake him up disgustingly early. A creature of habit, Blaine hits the light switch on the wall before he crawls into bed, considering how strange it is that it makes no discernible change. Theoretically, he could keep the lights off 24/7 and it wouldn’t make a difference. The blur of vision his right eye still maintains isn’t hardly worth using. 

* * *

By the end of his first day back at Dalton, Blaine’s utterly exhausted. He’s heard the question at least five million times, always shocked, awestruck, and painfully sympathetic like Blaine’s one of the dogs who stare in sad slow-motion at the camera lens in the ASPCA commercials on TV: _“What happened?”_

“Car accident,” is his general reply. He doesn’t offer any more details; he doesn’t need to. The results are obvious in his cautious gait, the woman constantly at his side, holding his arm, the sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He’s blind now. Disabled, impaired, broken.

Despite his exhaustion, he still lets Ariel lead him to the senior commons where the Warblers meet at 4:00. He’d texted the Warblers’ Captain last night to let him know that he’d transferred back and that he’d like to be considered for the choir. Sebastian had immediately said yes, but Blaine hadn’t let him make the choice so quickly. _Just wait until tomorrow to decide, okay?_ he’d urged him. _I don’t want you to regret your decision._

When he steps into the senior commons, the conversation around him grows hushed. Ariel leads him over to an unoccupied chair and Blaine gingerly settles into it, announcing to the room at large to break the tension and answer the question on all of their minds, “I was in a car accident. The windshield shattered. Now I can’t see anything but a blurred smudge out of my right eye. This is Ariel,” he pointed over his shoulder, hoping he was anywhere near on target, “my, uh… guide slash assistant slash specialist. I transferred back because I can’t drive myself to and from McKinley anymore and my parents don’t have time to do it either.” He omits the part where he’d also transferred to feel safer, because Dalton would always be his oasis when the rest of his life became a desert.

The silence grows heavier. Blaine worries that he’s jumped the gun too soon.

“Welcome home, Killer.” Sebastian sounds oddly collected when he speaks up, not at all like the overly sympathetic responses that have been thrown at him all day. Something about it makes Blaine feel more at ease—normal. “Unfortunately, Ariel,” he addresses her next, “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave. Private meeting, Warbler tradition and all that. I can walk Blaine back to his dorm when we’re finished.”

Ariel quietly asks Blaine if he’s comfortable with that. Blaine nods, “It’s fine,” and he listens to the sound of her heels click across the hardwood floor and fade out into silence.

“We’re trying out a few song contenders over the next few weeks to see what works best for the Regionals set,” Sebastian informs, “Do you think you might be ready to take lead solo, or you do want to stick with harmony for a while until you’ve got your a capella skills brushed back up?”

Blaine hesitates a moment before finally asking the question that’s been weighing on him all day. “Are you sure you want me to even be here? Now that I’m…?” he tapers off.

“Your eyes have nothing to do with your singing ability, Blaine. Look at Stevie Wonder.” Blaine bites his lip, at a loss for words. “You have one of the best voices that’s ever passed through the Warbler ranks. If I didn’t ask you to join us, it would be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

There’s a murmur of other voices throughout the room, agreeing.

“So, Blaine Warbler,” Blaine’s heart swells a bit, warm with the feeling of inclusion, “Do you want lead or harmony?”

* * *

After the first three weeks, Blaine finally begins to feel like he’s settling in. The routines become routine. He knows what to expect on most days, and the Warblers become his rock. No matter how tedious his schoolwork has become, no matter how annoyed he gets after listening to his laptop’s speakers robotically repeat everything he types and every webpage he navigates to, no matter how frustrating his attempts at learning Braille become, no matter how sick he gets of being blind, the Warblers are always there.

After the initial awkward meeting, the guys welcome him back into their ranks with open arms. Nick tells him one day at lunch that they’ve all been researching everything they can find out about being the most helpful as possible to a friend with vision imparities. They seem excited by the prospect, and Blaine is touched even though it makes him feel alien.

It’s easy for Blaine to sing lead. All he has to do is listen to the song on his iPhone until he’s memorized it, and then adapt what he’s learned to fit the Warblers’ arrangement. He humors his friends by singing lead on the song they put into their repertoire the second week after his transfer but afterward insists that he remain on harmony. He doesn’t want to cripple the group by giving them a leading man who can’t do choreography.

Learning the harmony parts is a bit more time consuming, especially since he can’t read sheet music anymore. Instead of focus on individual progress like most of the Warblers do outside of weekly rehearsal, Blaine spends his practice time with Sebastian. It’s serious work but their sessions together are laid back enough that Blaine doesn’t feel any undue pressure. Sebastian sings and Blaine echoes him. They count measures together so Blaine knows how long to hold each note. Sometimes they use a piano when the chords are particularly difficult to manage. With Sebastian’s help, Blaine always arrives to rehearsal prepared, even if all he can do is sit in the chair and sing while he listens to the rest of his friends’ shoes dance across the floor.

Sebastian becomes Blaine’s greatest asset aside from the choir itself. It becomes rare for a day to pass without the Captain of the Warblers stealing Blaine away from Ariel to walk him to class himself. Blaine doesn’t mind; he feels less conspicuous that way. Due to her gender, his specialist tends to stand out in a crowd of the male student body. People always know blinded Blaine Anderson is coming down the hall when they hear her heels click on the tile floor, and though he appreciates her presence immensely, Blaine can’t pretend that it doesn’t get old, knowing people are staring. Walking with Sebastian, he feels like less an anomaly and more like a regular student. It’s a blessing in itself.

At lunch, Sebastian helps him carry his things to the table. Blaine wedges his way in among the Warblers’ regular seating arrangement like he’s always been there, sitting at Sebastian’s side.

They grow significantly closer with each passing day, becoming more comfortable with one another than they’d ever been in the past. It’s easy and natural—which is probably why Blaine isn’t incredibly surprised when Sebastian pauses to ask a question on his way out the door after walking Blaine back to his dorm on a Friday afternoon.

“Hey, Blaine?”

“Yeah?”

“Uh, I was… I was wondering if maybe you’d want to get coffee with me tomorrow? I can come get you at 2:00 and we can drive out to the Lima Bean or something. If you want.”

“Oh, sure. Yeah, sure; that’d be great,” Blaine stammers. He smiles.

“Great.” He can hear Sebastian grinning too, “I’ll see you then.”

Blaine _has a date_.

He’s blind, but Sebastian still asked him out on a date. He shoots up to Cloud 9 faster than he has since before Kurt slipped out of his life, and he rides the high of his excitement all night long until about 1:45 the next afternoon when he suddenly dissolves into an unstoppable panic that brings him down off the cloud in an instant and all but casts him into an abyss beneath his feet.

A loud crash on the opposite side of the room nearly gives him a heart attack. He sits frozen on his bed for a full minute before feeling brave enough to investigate the sound, convinced that no one’s going to jump out of his eternal shadows wielding a knife. Of course it’s not a murderer. The source of the crash, Blaine discovers, had been caused by the rack in his closet. It had somehow come lose and fell to the floor, scattering his immaculately organized hangers in every direction—a mere inconvenience for most people.

Blaine tries to fix it, but he might as well be trying to put a car back together for all the good his groping around does. He can tell the difference between a few of his clothes from the material, like his Dalton blazer, but his sweaters and vests are in an unmanageable mess, tangled in a pile, and Blaine has no idea which one is the dark red—the one he’d planned to wear to his date with a pair of tight blue jeans, a white collared shirt, and a bow tie.

He has a one in six chance of picking the right one but a _five_ in six chance of picking the wrong one, and if he picks the vest that’s bright green, it will clash horribly with the bed and white striped bow tie. The blue would be _too much blue_ with his jeans, and he really doesn’t want the one covered in gray stripes. He lifts up his sunglasses for a moment, staring hard at the floor and straining his right eye to make sense of the blur of color; _he has a date to get ready for, god dammit_. It hurts to focus, and he squeezes his eyes shut again, letting the glasses fall back against the bridge of his nose. The tears hit Blaine suddenly and without warning, and his knees buckle in defeat, breathing hard and loud.

He doesn’t hear the knock on his unlocked door or when Sebastian lets himself in. When Sebastian calls out his name in concern, Blaine hears it but chooses to ignore, more tears sliding from behind his dark lenses out of embarrassment. A hand touches his back and Blaine jumps in surprise, trying to hide his face.

“Blaine,” Sebastian sounds distraught and extremely worried, “Blaine, it’s okay,” he says desperately, “We can get it fixed. We’ll get it all put back up; don’t worry.”

Blaine shakes his head, voice trembling when he replies, “And what’ll I do if it falls down again, Sebastian? What if it fell and no one was here to help?”

“But I _am_ here,” Sebastian insists, “It’s alright.”

 _“It’s not alright!”_ Blaine finally shouts, the volume of his own voice surprising him. He scrambles awkwardly to his feet and strides away, blindly pacing. “It’s not alright! I’m fucking _blind!”_ He doesn’t stop, not even when he walks into his desk hard enough to bruise his hip. Blaine kicks his leg out and nearly unbalances himself, growing even more frustrated when his foot only catches the air. “I can’t _see_ anything! I’ll never be able to see anything, Sebastian!” His breath hitches painfully. “I’m disabled. I’m… I’m broken and nothing can fix it.”

“Blaine, you’re not brok—”

“I can’t even write my name on my papers!” Blaine shouts, “Every time I get in the shower I have to text Ariel, and if I don’t text her again in thirty minutes she’s supposed to call an ambulance because that means I’ve slipped and probably bashed my head open! I can’t read books! Watching TV and movies is useless! All I’ve got is music, Sebastian; that’s _it_! And once I’m out of high school, what good is that gonna do me? I’m 18 and my life is practically over!”

The grief threatens to bring him back down to his knees, but Sebastian is there, wrapping the stricken senior up into his arms. “Shh,” he soothes gently, “C’mon, let’s go sit on your bed.” Blaine lets himself be led through darkness over to his mattress and doesn’t protest when Sebastian urges him to lay his head on his chest. “Let it out, Blaine,” Sebastian whispers quietly, “I don’t care. You know I’m not gonna judge you.”

Blaine knows, so he lets himself cry. He clutches on to the back of Sebastian’s shirt and stains the fabric with countless tears from his unseeing eyes, not bothering to feel any shame at the childlike tantrum. Sebastian rubs a hand between his shoulder blades, rocks him back and forth and kisses his temple. Blaine sobs for what seems like ages. For the first time since the windshield shattered his life into pieces, he allows himself to mourn the entirety of what he’s lost—not just his sight, but all the opportunities that are seem closed off to him because of it.

“I’m here for you, alright?” Sebastian reminds him later, after his cries have dissolved into hiccups. “You know that?”

Blaine sniffles, nodding once against his chest. Silence falls over them again.

“I wanna be with you,” Sebastian says then, out of the blue and uncharacteristically nervous.

“You don’t have to do this,” Blaine mumbles.

“Do what?”

“Date the blind kid to make him feel better about himself,” he says, monotone.

“Don’t.” Now Sebastian sounds irritated, “Don’t you dare devalue yourself.”

“I’m useless.”

Sebastian pulls Blaine back from his chest. Blaine waits for him to get up and leave; undoubtedly he must see Blaine’s worthlessness now that it’s been pointed out. Sebastian doesn’t leave, though. He holds Blaine by one shoulder and reaches up to grab for the sunglasses.

“No,” Blaine whines, ducking his head away.

“Why not?” Sebastian asks.

“I can’t see you... They don’t _work_ , Bas. I probably look like some freakish zombie.”

Sebastian laughs breathily, squeezing Blaine’s shoulder. “Let me be the judge of that, B,” he requests, “Please? The first time we met I thought your eyes were beautiful. I miss seeing them...”

Blaine sighs, nods. “Thank you,” Sebastian murmurs. He moves his hand from Blaine’s shoulder and carefully slides the glasses from his face, setting them down gently before cupping Blaine’s head in his hands, pads of his thumbs brushing over Blaine’s high cheekbones. Blaine bites his lip, anxious, and lets his eyelids slide open. Vague color registers in his right, but there’s no telling what it is he sees. “Well?” he asks after a beat.

“Gorgeous,” Sebastian concludes in a soft voice. He’s not lying. They’re a little glossed, the pupils still, small, and unfocused. He can make out a few thin scars cutting across the transparent film of Blaine’s corneas where the glass had embedded itself and changed his life, but the irises are just as warm as ever, like molten hazel-gold. “You’re beautiful, Blaine.”

Blaine shakes his head against Sebastian’s palms, disbelieving.

“Yes, you are,” Sebastian argues back, “Trust me. You’re beautiful and you deserve to be happy.”

“I don’t know how to be,” Blaine confesses, voice weak.

“Then let me help you,” Sebastian implores, “Let me help you find your happiness, Blaine.”

Blaine takes a silent breath, blinks uselessly, then responds in a voice hardly above a whisper, “Kiss me.”

Sebastian doesn’t need to be told twice. He leans in and gently catches Blaine’s lips, pressing himself in close. Blaine’s hands slide up the sides of Sebastian’s body, navigating their way up until they settle around the back of Sebastian’s neck. A stray tear leaks down his cheek.

Most children are afraid of the dark. It’s hard to know what’s lurking in the shadows or behind the closet door. Darkness brings nightmares that make kids pull up their blankets and clutch a stuffed animal close. Blaine’s far too old to be afraid of the monsters under the bed, but he’s been plunged into a darkness that never ends. He’s terrified of the future—What can a blind man do in a world that moves too quickly?—but when he’s afraid he knows he can reach out and there will be a hand to hold, ready to walk through darkness at his side.


End file.
